Ashley Hinson takes massive fundraising edge in Iowa’s open-seat U.S. Senate campaign

DES MOINES — Ashley Hinson may not have the power of incumbency in Iowa’s U.S. Senate election, technically speaking.

But she is fundraising like an incumbent.

Hinson, the Eastern Iowa Republican Congresswoman running in Iowa’s open-seat U.S. Senate election, raised nearly $1.7 million in the last three months of last year and started 2026 with nearly $5.2 million in her campaign account, according to recently filed federal campaign fundraising reports.

The top three Democrats running for the Senate — and ultimately, likely, a spot with Hinson on the general election ballot — started the year with a combined $1.2 million in their accounts.

Iowa’s 2026 U.S. Senate election is open after Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst announced last year that she will not seek a third, six-year term. Ernst was first elected in 2014 and reelected in 2020.

Hinson announced her campaign for the Senate on the same day Ernst announced her retirement.

Hinson started the final quarter of 2025 with more than $4 million in her account, and through October, November and December raised just less than $1.7 million and spent roughly $563,000, according to the new reports.

“Ashley and our team are raising the resources necessary to secure Republican victories up and down the ballot this year,” Hinson Deputy Campaign Manager Addie Lavis said in a campaign press release. “(Democratic U.S. Senate Leader) Chuck Schumer and his leftist allies will continue to flood the state with outside money, but Ashley will put in the work and visit every corner of Iowa to earn every single vote this election. Iowans will soundly reject Zach Wahls and his radical agenda at the ballot box this November.”

Wahls, a state legislator from Coralville, was indeed the top fundraiser on the Democrats’ side of the election, raising more than $742,000 in the period. Josh Turek, a state legislator from Council Bluffs, raised roughly $678,000.

Because Turek spent a little more on his campaign in the same period, Wahls also finished the year with more funds in his campaign account: $733,481 to Turek’s $ 398,474.

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“Zach Wahls is building the campaign to win in November. He’s the strongest fundraiser, entering 2026 with a significant cash-on-hand edge, he’s organizing across the state and showing up in communities where Democrats have lost ground, and he’s earning the support of working-class Iowans through growing labor endorsements,” Wahls campaign senior adviser Andrew Suchorski wrote in a campaign memo. “This is what a winning Iowa campaign looks like.”

Turek’s campaign highlighted his success winning a competitive state legislative district in conservative Western Iowa as evidence that he can succeed in a U.S. Senate campaign.

“Donations came in from the working class Iowans that Josh is committed to representing: machinists in Madrid, firefighters in Coralville, students in Sioux City, waitresses in Anamosa, pipefitters in Davenport, line cooks in Charles City, teachers, truck drivers, and nurses from across the state,” Turek campaign manager Brendan Koch said in a statement. “They know as the only one in this primary who has even run against a Republican, Josh is the best shot we have at keeping Ashley Hinson out of the U.S. Senate.”

Three prominent national elections forecasters — Sabato’s Crystal Ball, Cook Political Report and Inside Elections — all project Iowa’s U.S. Senate election as “likely Republican.”

Iowa’s primary election is June 2, and the general election is Nov. 3.

Democrat Nathan Sage, a former chamber of commerce leader from Indianola, raised $230,000 during the period but finished the year with just $86,339 in his campaign account.

Another Republican, Sioux City lawyer and former state lawmaker Jim Carlin, also seeks his party’s nomination in the U.S. Senate election. His report was the only in Iowa’s U.S. Senate election not filed on the Federal Election Commission’s website as of Monday afternoon. Carlin started the final quarter of 2025 with just $1,727.61 in his campaign account.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

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